Lily Gladstone on Devery Jacobs’ ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Criticism: “This Movie Gave a Lot of People a Chance to Speak”

is defending her co star ‘ right to her opinion about , Martin Scorsese’s take on the . The Golden Globe winner briefly addressed the star’s comments about the film, in which Jacobs of watching it as “hellfire.” The film chronicles the “reign of terror,” a string of unsolved murders by white Americans as part of a plot to steal the wealth of the Osage tribe, which retained the mineral rights, including oil leases, on their reservation.

This was carried out in part by white men marrying women of the tribe and becoming guardians of their Osage partner’s estate. In the film, Gladstone plays Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman who is targeted alongside her family by her husband, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), for their oil headrights on their Oklahoma reservation.

In a thread of posts shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, Jacobs wrote, “Imagine the worst atrocities committed against yr ancestors, then having to sit thru a movie explicitly filled w/ them, w/ the only respite being 30min long scenes of murderous white guys talking about/planning the killings.” Gladstone told that she and Jacobs are friends, with the latter allowing the star to crash “on her couch in Toronto when played at TIFF.” As a fellow Native woman, Gladstone expressed that she did not “want to bring heat back on [Jacobs] for this because I think that’s unfair.

Her reaction is hers.” The star and writer went on to add that reactions like Jacobs’ are “a response to a lot of trauma that particularly Native women feel seeing these things for the first time,” before noting that she herself “had a lot of time acclimating myself to the script.” “The Osage people have had their lives to understand this history,” she continued.

“The process of making this movie gave a lot of people a chance to speak. Ultimately, Osage reaction is what I care about the most.” While much of the buzz around the film praised its Indigenous representation, Jacobs was not the only person to speak up about the film’s white led perspective, with Christopher Cote — the film’s Osage language consultant — at the film’s L.A.

premiere that after seeing the film, he had “some strong opinions.” “As an Osage, I really wanted this to be from the perspective of Mollie and what her family experienced, but I think it would take an Osage to do that,” Cote said. “Martin Scorsese, not being Osage, I think he did a great job representing our people, but this history is being told almost from the perspective of Ernest Burkhart, and they kind of give him this conscience and kind of depict that there’s love.

But when somebody conspires to murder your entire family, that’s not love. That’s not love, that’s just beyond abuse.” Last Sunday, Gladstone won the Golden Globe in the best performance by a female actor in a motion picture – drama category for her role in the film, marking a and awards show.

She is expected to be among the Oscars’ best actress nominees and is currently . THR Newsletters Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day More from The Hollywood Reporter.